


Loving You

by slamjam



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Asexual Character, Cuddling & Snuggling, Getting Together, Good Cows, Jon has to blink manually now have fun with that, Love Confessions, M/M, Scottish Honeymoon Fic, The Eye, mention of sexual fantasies, mentions of Basira/Daisy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:21:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21765220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slamjam/pseuds/slamjam
Summary: (is easy cus you're beautiful)In which Jon and Martin take the train.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 10
Kudos: 170





	Loving You

**Author's Note:**

> a lil disclaimer: i don't think its important enough to the story to put in the tags but there are mentions of underage drinking and sexual fantasies in passing, nothing that is lingered on per say, but if it squicks you out click away.

It was the cows that did it. They were so odd looking at first, the Eye had to confirm what they actually were (Bò Ghàidhealach, peata e, chan urrainn dhi do ghortachadh)[1] before he’d freaked out and/or asked Martin. Something about them was so soft, he’d never really imagined they could look like that.  
He’d seen some before when he was young on holiday with his Gran; but they looked like such hairless things, brown and stolid and skinny in a field by the edge of town. She’d asked if he wanted to go pet them because church services would be out soon and the farmer who owned them was nice if he would use his manners, but he shook his head and buried his face in the hem of her long sweater because of the smell. And that was that; no cows in London, just prepackaged meat in polystyrene trays with the occasional puddle of thin red juice clotted in the little pad that lay underneath. No meat for a while really, ever since he’d met Jared he’d felt a bit queasy whenever he considered going for a burger or lunchmeat. And really he’d been one of the last ones to stop eating it in the archives, still muscling his way through some sort of chicken curry on the odd occasion his need to prove something coincided with a group call for takeout. Martin had never eaten red meat to his knowledge, and didn’t know whether it was Knowledge or something else. 

But it didn’t matter, it would be fine. His face was pressed into Martin’s shoulder with an arm around his waist so he could get a good view out the window without switching seats, and Martin had been rubbing little circles into his hair for the past hour or so and it wasn’t a problem. They were acting fine, it was fine. 

“What’s that face for?” Martin murmured and Jon blinked for the first time in probably a hot minute, feeling his eyes burn and well up with tears, rain after a drought. 

He hummed, trying for nonchalance but had to bring his fist up to rub at his eyes.  
“The cows” he mumbled “they’re so good” and Martin laughed, just one thin peal, but real and happy. He blinked one bleary eye open at the taller man, whose hand was now clapped tight over his mouth, craning his neck to see Jon without dislodging his head from its perch on Martin’s shoulder.

“What.” 

“You sounded so…like you were swooning. Like some 20’s movie star, “oh the cows, shall I ask them to dance.” He was trying not to laugh behind his hand, eyes dancing and Jon felt something press at the back of his mind. Some quiet thing he’d held at bay and suddenly there was a fresh rush of tears and with it, bizarrely, the urge to sob. 

Martin’s expression darkened and he pulled his hand away from his face. “Oh, you’re crying.” He wiped at Jon’s cheeks and despite his gut reaction (to push Martin’s hands away and snap something about being patronizing) he let him. His mouth was bitten red and his hand lingered on Jon’s scars so that he had to shut his eyes again, pressing hard with the heel of his hand until he could see little white spots dance behind his eyelids.

“Oh Jon.” Martin sighed, shifting so that he could pull Jon towards his chest, cradle his head there. It was wildly uncomfortable for the both of them, his back was aching, couldn’t imagine them finding a worse position if they tried but he never ever wanted to leave. 

“It’s not the cows” He croaked, once he was able. “it’s my eyes, I have to blink manually now and it-“ He waved his hand vaguely. Martin laugh sounded more familiar to him then, the little sad thing he was so used to, and it broke his heart. “It’s okay Jon, you don’t have to tell me-“

“But I want to, I want you to know.”

“Oh.” His voice was soft. 

“It’s an eye thing, actually I’m really grateful that you pushed me out of it” Jon hissed as his hands rubbed against another painful part “it would only get worse if you didn’t” 

“Can’t do any permanent damage but God does it hurt. Yeah I know.” Jon wanted to know how he knew, what Peter did to him almost as bad as breathing but he kept his mouth clamped firmly shut “Do you want me to uh, help with it?”

“No, no. Well actually maybe, erm, can you just check me like you did just now, if you see me going a little too long without…acting human I suppose?” 

“Yeah, yes I can do that.”

“Thank you, Martin.” Jon heard himself say and Martin snorted. 

“Sounded a bit like your old self right there.” 

“So did you.” Jon said, fiddling with the collar of Martin’s jumper, running his finger along the smooth even line. 

“Mmm, I was really-was I really always just ready to do what you wanted like that?” 

“You’ve always been accommodating, I suppose.”

Martin shifted in his seat. “Jon, why don’t you scoot a bit, just so I can, um-“ 

There was a moment of awkward reshuffling, when Jon was worried Martin wanted to get away from him, that he’d said something wrong. He lifted his head and cracked a (still teary) eye to see the blurry outline of Martin looking around the compartment for a place to set something and felt that thing insistently pushing at his head keen with feeling. “Here” the martin-shaped blob said, “You just, lean back on me and- there we go.” Jon found himself nestled firmly in his former assistant’s arms, legs draped over the side of the bench. “Better?”  
Martin pulled a piece of Jon’s hair out from his face and Jon just sighed. He really had no reason to let Martin do this, just like Martin had no reason to do it in the first place but there he was, voluntarily pulling the snot covered hair out of Jon’s face. Maybe that’s what love felt like. Maybe Peter Lukas was wrong, and there was a chance in hell that Jon could go out to the countryside with his- with Martin Blackwood and be happy. He found a little pattern in the wool of the jumper where one stitch attached to another and ran his fingers along the seam, trying to ignore the warmth of the man underneath. 

“Jon”

“Yeah.”

“Is it bad that I’m- that I think I’m happy I got caught up in the Lonely?” 

But maybe Peter Lukas was right. “How?” 

“If I really was the way- just so self-depreciatory, all ‘ooh I’m so sorry Jon let me get you some tea oooh’ and-I can see why you hated me.” 

“I never hated you!” Jon lied and Martin tsked. 

“We all heard your recordings Jon, and more importantly, fucking knew you. You’re pretty easy to read, you know that?”

“I am not” Jon said, offended.

“Like a book, Simms. You are as predictable as weather” It sounded like he was smiling, and Jon felt his mouth curl up at the edges despite himself. “And besides, I kind of hated myself too. That’s part of the reason I went with Lukas anyways.” 

“Wait, you actually went with Lukas willingly?” Jon tried to sit up but floundered; all his remaining strength had left him in the crying jag and he just let himself fall back down, head lolling in Martin’s lap. 

“Uh yes, that’s why I didn’t leave the moment I heard you’d come back, or before that really.” Something in him felt off, Jon decided to probe deeper. 

“I always thought Elias assigned you to him somehow. You know, working from beyond the, uh, well not the grave because he’s still rather alive-“

“from behind bars” Martin supplied

“Yes, behind bars” Jon’s hand shot up for emphasis, “or he blackmailed you, but aside from your mother I don’t know what he would have… you seem like a pretty normal person.” 

“Ah yes, because I don’t work in the archives” Martin said dryly. 

“No” He poked Martin in the arm just to hear him grumble “I mean outside of that, like, Tim had his brother, and Sasha, well she never really got a chance did she. But you, and Basira, I don’t know why you stayed outside of the contract.” Martin was very still, taking steady breaths. 

“To be fair Jon, you don’t really know me…” he said and then sighed. “He made me a deal. I could lose the most important person in my life, or I could work for him. And I chose to work for him. Is that enough?” 

“I mean, you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want, I genuinely don’t think I have the energy to summon a compulsion if I tried.” 

Martin made a little noise in the back of his throat. “You really have no damn idea do you.” 

“That Basira and Daisy were hooking up? I mean I’m not totally blind but-“

“They were married, Jon!” Martin exploded, his hands flying off of Jon’s stomach “ The moment they both got hired they came back with rings and- God you really don’t notice. The entire office could have been in love with you, even Tim and you would have just walked right past until someone smacked you over the head with it.” 

“In love-they didn’t invite you all to the wedding?” 

Martin made a complex series of muffled screeching noises and Jon cracked his eye open to see him squeeze his eyes shut in concentration before he spoke again. “Considering that we were literally keeping them hostage in the archives with a magical evil contract, no. I don’t. think they did.” 

“But Elias still came didn’t he.”

“Daisy said he brought a cutlery set. She got a killing off it on Ebay.” 

“I’m not that unobservant, you know...” but Martin’s withering look stopped him before he got much further. 

“Alright. Okay I miss things a lot, and I forget to blink and start crying over you and these stupid-fucking cows. And I didn’t know that Basira was married to Daisy, whatever. I knew something was going on between them so that should count.” 

“God you really are tired, aren’t you.” 

“Don’t distract me, Now why are you here?” 

Martin looked down at him, like he needed something desperately but couldn’t quite figure out how to get it, not an analytical or angry look but desperate. Quiet. Like he’d already resigned himself to losing and Jon’s head ached with the strain of not knowing something plain. His eye slid shut again and he took deep breaths, tried to clench his muscles, literally force it back in.

“Jon” He said, his hands cupping his face. There were odd calluses on his fingers (bass guitar and she can bend all the way backwards I), a notch (god my hand hurts but there’s still an hour left) on his left hand pointer finger. His pinky nail came off twice, nearly three times in accidents (with a car door and a rogue printer hatch) and Jon couldn’t stop Knowing him. 

“Martin” he said, breathless with the new knowledge, trying to stop the flow but Martin just kept looking at him. 

“You were going to tell me…why you were-“ Martin had his first kiss at seventeen on a dare and the boy’s lips were (chapped but sweet and he wanted more than anything to) he’d gone to exactly one semester of Uni before his mother’s diagnosis and the dish she made before she told him (Zagotuj kapustę, a następnie wytnij twarde części - słuchasz?)[2] still tasted like fear to him to this day, he’d gotten drunk for the first time off strawberry Svedka (basement), he’d fucked on the roof of an abandoned building (ex girlfriend), there was a freckle trapped in the cupids bow of his lip that made it crooked and (I love you Jon). 

“Oh.” He’d had a crush on Jon for approximately four years, three months and nineteen days. There were seconds in there somewhere too, but he didn’t bother to figure them out, his mind still swimming with all that time. He’d had, oh, quite a lot of fantasies, Jon tried to skip politely over those but it was hard when so many of them had Martin with that sweet, slightly stricken look on his face as Jon- he shook his head and kept going. Time, time was important and he had only started working at- (the magnus archives like a few months beforehand but he was so sweet and his tongue would stick out when he worked and he’d convinced Tim not to fuck the new guy but done the stupid thing and gotten worked up over some straight idiot who) 

He interrupted the line of Knowledge with a tentative “Martin, I’m not straight.” 

The man in question blinked owlishly down at Jon for a few seconds before breaking into laughter. Not giggles, or a polite laugh but real howling laughter, the kind that hurts your chest, your lungs. 

“What, what is it?” Jon said but Martin just shook his head and kept wheezing, waving a hand in front of his face. 

“Out of all the things you could have-“ Martin took a deep breath and broke into another cackle again before settling himself “ Jon did it even matter if you were straight at a certain point? You were clearly not into me.” 

“I-hm.” Martin crumpled, his head dropping down to rest on Jon’s sternum. 

“God, I don’t mean to be mean but your thought process is- fascinating to watch.” He lifted his head back up and wiped the little tears that had gathered away. “Everyone knew Jon, they were always making little jabs at me to go get em and finally tell you but I wasn’t- I knew I never would, because you’re you and I’m me and that’s how things are for us. But then I went to the fucking… shadow realm, Lonely and became someone else. Someone who could be mean and cruel and probably get people killed if not do it directly myself. I was able to say no for the first time and really mean it. Like with my whole chest, and it felt good, Jon. It felt so good to just feel nothing but rage, and sadness and no.” 

“Are- do you still feel that way?” 

“Do you think I’d be here if I did?” And Jon knew the answer, the old-fashioned way. Tentatively, he reached his hand up and ran it through Martin’s hair, cupping the back of his head. The other man didn’t flinch, just stared down at him steady and warm. 

“It was easier to bring you out than it was with the others. I mean they weren’t fighting either, gave me their stories like the rest and I know it’s kind of sick to compare this to that but- it was like you pressed into me.” 

“It was the first time you asked.” Martin said simply, steady against Jon like he could never move, and it was love. Plain and simple, no questions. 

“This actually went a lot easier than I thought it would, huh.” Jon said, almost to himself.

“What?” 

“The whole “I’m in love with you” thing, I figured we’d have to have it out at some point after the Lonely and I-

“Wait wait wait, you just said that you’re in love with me?” Martin said, arms out like he was balancing on something precarious and Jon seriously considered getting up and smacking his head against the wall. 

“Martin, I swear on my life, you just gave the world’s most beautiful love confession and I was just-“

“Just making sure!” Martin interrupted, as he sighed and leaned back against the bench, eyes closing. 

“Not having any second thoughts, are we?” Jon asked after a moment, a bit nervous in the silence. 

“Well, now that you think about it, I might just want to go off and live with the cows instead.” 

“Fuck off” 

“They’re quite good this time of year, I hear.” Martin’s smile was audible in his voice, he would have known even if Jon wasn’t looking straight at him, sliding his hand down to cup his cheek. 

“I heard your informant’s an idiot.” He mumbled. 

“Mmm, but I like him anyways.” He pressed a kiss to Jon’s palm and his face heated something terrible. 

“You’d better.” Martin was watching him, blushing back and for the first time since the Lonely, since leaving London and everything behind, Jon smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> [1] Scottish Gaelic. Translation: Highland cow, pet it, she can't hurt you 
> 
> [2] Polish. Translation: Boil the cabbage, then cut out the hard parts- are you listening? 
> 
> Title is from Minnie Riperton's [Loving You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE0pwJ5PMDg). Oh the high notes, how they make me go all fluttery....
> 
> Martin played/plays the bass because he wants to be [Lindsay Ballato](https://www.google.com/search?q=lyn+z+way+backbend&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS870US870&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiutL6hra_mAhUic98KHZLBAUEQ_AUoAXoECAoQAw&biw=1182&bih=609&dpr=2). The meal he was making with his mother was [Golabki](https://www.google.com/search?q=golabki&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS870US870&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwig45W1ra_mAhXxTN8KHTwODpQQ_AUoAXoECBEQAw&biw=1182&bih=609&dpr=2#imgrc=_).
> 
> Yes I am making Jon go through a romance/little gay crisis b/c I'm projecting. I think it's very sexy of me.  
> And yes the reason his eyes were shut is b/c i'm trying to be less of a miserable bastard abt writing actions.


End file.
